There are countless volumes that have been written arguing why there just has to be some kind of omnipotent intelligence out there which, like “nargles”, is apparently very good at hiding (my mom and sister are big harry potter fans, I couldn’t resist).

While the specific arguments are vast in number, they are all variations of the same two arguments. That is that everything that exists must be created, and everything complex must be designed.

The obvious problem with this is that any god would have to completely falsify both premises. Any creator or designer would have to exists without being created and be complex without being designed. So if the premises of these arguments for why there must be a god are true, there not only cannot be any gods (since they can’t exist without being created by creators that cannot exist because their creators must also be created by creators and so on into infinity, and their designers must be designed by designed designers that were… you get the idea) but if the premises of these arguments are true then it goes even further than that, for the premises of these arguments to be true there would have to exist nothing. No creator can exist without being created by a creator that cannot exist without a creator and so forth, so obviously there cannot be an infinite string of creators or “designers”, so according to these premises nothing exists and nothing ever can. Clearly not the case.

This is why the people who use this argument have now rephrased it, now they say “nothing that *began* to exist can exist without being created, and god never *began* to exist.

Which is kind of like saying 2 + 2 = a bushel of potatoes, because your godless “math” and “logic” just don’t apply to my number 2. My number 2 can be anything I believe it to be. It can be invisible and send people to the moon and make swimming pools into cottage cheese factories and…

Well you get the idea. Total anarchy of logic. Magical thinking. Now if religious folk want to believe things that aren’t logical, if they want to conclude things based on leaps of faith, this is america and obviously they have that right, but why do they have to pretend to be logical, and scientific and have evidence? Why are there creationist videos with auto mechanics wearing white lab coats and talking about genetics, and why do creationists who call themselves “Dr.” (often without actually being one, eg kent hovind) make a mint?

Why not call it what it is, a leap of faith?

Because that’s rather unsatisfying, I suspect. They want evidence, they want to know they’re right. But there is no evidence, there is no logic. It’s faith.

I may have to steal part of this and make a post on the logic of an eternal universe vs. an eternal god… but maybe my multiverse entry would be more fun. I dunno. So much to write about, so few people willing to read it.

Very interesting post. To me everything in the world as we know it functions according to certain specific laws. A law doesn’t cause a thing to happen-a law explains how a thing works. And whether or not we choose to go along witht he lawmakes no difference at all in the outcome.For example, the law of gravity says, “If you jump,you will get lumps”. So people might not like that Idea. It may ever bug every doctrine we ever had. But if you jump off the roof,you will get lumpy. The law of gravity is completely impervious to dadverse opinions. And it has no respector of persons. Yoou might be skinny, fat, small, or large; youmight be a kindergarten dropout or a Ph.D peasant, professional, or king on a throne-the law of gravityis not going to repeal itself for anyone.I believe this by faith.

From reading the comments, I noticed your point that reason does not lead people to believe in a particular god with x characteristic and y characteristic. That makes sense. From looking at the universe, I might come to the conclusion that there is a god, but I don’t think I would be led to believe that he is holy and just, that he hates evil and loves people, etc. (the Christian God). I accept those things from the Bible because, from reading it, its worldview makes sense and fits with what I have seen and experienced.

@GodlessLiberal – Haha.@GodlessLiberal – Thief. : P@tau_1 – Laws, scientifically speaking, are mathematical descriptions of perceived universal constants. You do not accept gravity based on faith, you accept it based on experimental evidence and universal human experience, since if one person could defy gravity you’d hear about it, so you effectively base your position on 6 billion people unwittingly performing experiments and testing your hypothesis daily.@goodnessgraceness – I can basically guarantee you it doesn’t. The bible is not holy, it’s holey. It’s riddled with holes and fantastical claims and baseless assertions and the like.

@agnophilo – This is nonsense. We know why every naturaldisaster occurs, none of them have anything to do with “sin” and mostof them can be proven to have been occurring or their underlying causesto have existed, since long before human beings walked the earth, orsince things like water or fire existed.You’re assuming that God and sin don’t exist and you can’t prove what happened but only speculate. No one was there. we don’t know what happened.

@musterion99 – No, that’s stupid.What does “sin” have to do with viruses or bacteria, or earth quakes? Was the core of the earth not molten before the “fall”? Did warm and cold air not exist before the “fall” to form tornadoes and hurricanes?The idea that “sin” causes these things when we know what causes them and it ain’t “sin” is moronic.

@agnophilo – In your original blog, you mentioned about two main arguments in support of a divine creator, which was “1) everything that exists must be created, and 2) everything complex must be designed.” Which lead to the paradox of “no creator can exist without being created by another creator who also cannot exist without first being created.” That implies nothing can exist, which we all agree is not true. This lead to the revised belief of “nothing that *begin* to exist can exist without being created, and God never *began* to exist.” The world may still be “banging” but since the paradox cannot be true, it can be rationally concluded that the world had a beginning, which means we have a finite universe. This begs the question of what could possibly create the world? We don’t have the answer to that, logically speaking. But this is what man has come up with: 1) A divine, intelligent being known as God who existed, not *began*, before anything else and lives outside our comprehensible realm, 2) a multitude of deities who behave like us more or less (Roman mythology), 3) primordial cesspool and/or big bang (spontaneous generation) and 4) ? (I don’t know).I’ll say this: there are phenomena unexplainable by science (some not explainable right now but possibly in the future), that can only be justified by a divine being. This of course, would be considered by nonbelievers as a fairytale. Let me continue. In the Bible, it has been mentioned that there was a great darkness from the sixth hour (noon) to the ninth hour when Jesus Christ died on the cross. Surely, if it was true, other people would have taken notice of the darkness. There was a Christian chronographer by the name of Sextus Julius Africanus, who wrote about the history of the world up to 221 AD, he makes mention of one historian named Thallus (who in AD 52 wrote about history of the Mediterranean since the Trojan War). The passage went something like this, “on the whole world there pressed a fearful darkness, and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, without reason it seems to me.” Julius Africanus finds an eclipse hard to believe because it occurred during a full moon. Both Thallus and Julius Africanus took it for granted that Jesus died (and therefore existed). Another historian by the name of Phlegon, who lived in the first century and known for writing two books, Chronicles and the Olympiads, made note of the darkness. He reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (33 AD), there was “the greatest eclipse of the sun” and that “it became night in the sixth hour of the day (noon) so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea.” Origen Admantius, an early Christian scholar, cites Phlegon in his book “Against Celsus.” From the above references, during the time of Jesus’ death, there was a solar eclipse beginning at noon that lasted three hours, on a day where there was to be a full moon at night.

@agnophilo – What does “sin” have to do with viruses or bacteria, or earth quakes?IF God and the bible are true, sin affected all of creation. Before sin, there was no death in the garden and there won’t be any in heaven.The idea that “sin” causes these things when we know what causes them and it ain’t “sin” is moronic.Once again, you don’t know that, but can only speculate. You don’t know if sin has effected creation and changed what it was before the fall of Adam.

@agnophilo – simply because I do see God intervening, in my life and in others’. I guess what you would consider something coincidental or just randomly good, I see as something given by God?but then again, I don’t see bad things as “punishment” or anything.. and I believe in karma… so I suppose my beliefs are all over the place hahaby the way, thank you so much for not bashing me, and asking an honest question. for real! I was scared to comment at first… lol

@agnophilo – Truth must be realized individually.It must be realized by you; otherwise it is not your truth.Only your Truth, not the truth, is expressed in your life, not anyone else’s.How do you find your truth?By seeking and finding the teacher within.You see, the Teacher and the Truth within are one.John Randolph PriceIndividually speaking In the world of science, we have discovered that atoms wander around aimlessly. It’s called randomness. We find the same thing in some people, an aimless running around here and there, without accomlishing anything. they keep trying to attach themselves to something, or trying to attach something to themselves, to find completeness.Now individually speaking, they never make it, until they attach themselves to something. What I latch myself to is by a leap of faith.

@agnophilo – In your original blog, you mentionedabout two main arguments in support of a divine creator, which was “1)everything that exists must be created, and 2) everything complex mustbe designed.” Which lead to the paradox of “no creator can existwithout being created by another creator who also cannot exist withoutfirst being created.” That implies nothing can exist, which we allagree is not true. This lead to the revised belief of “nothing that*begin* to exist can exist without being created, and God never *began*to exist.”Yes, you’re paraphrasing my blog. Now what is your point?”The world may still be “banging”” UNIVERSE. All matter in the UNIVERSE is still expanding. Not the world.”but since the paradoxcannot be true, it can be rationally concluded that the world had abeginning, which means we have a finite universe.” I talked about creation and design, not existence. A self-existent universe does not need a creator or a designer, so why are you using my criticism of those concepts as a lead-in to attack the big bang?”This begs thequestion of what could possibly create the world? We don’t have theanswer to that, logically speaking.”This is where the comment should have ended. Ah but woe, for it does not…”But this is what man has come upwith: 1) A divine, intelligent being known as God who existed, not*began*, before anything else and lives outside our comprehensiblerealm, 2) a multitude of deities who behave like us more or less (Romanmythology), “Actually those are kind of the same thing. One magical being made everything, or lots of magical beings made everything. Either way, magic is not an explanation, which is why you said WE DON’T KNOW.”3) primordial cesspool and/or big bang (spontaneousgeneration)” None of those concepts have anything to do with how the universe came to exist.”and 4) ? (I don’t know).”Exactly. You don’t know, the end.”I’ll say this: there arephenomena unexplainable by science (some not explainable right now butpossibly in the future), that can only be justified by a divine being.” NAME THEM.”This of course, would be considered by nonbelievers as a fairytale.” Magic beings, yeah that’s the stuff of fairy tales.”Let me continue. In the Bible, it has been mentioned that there was agreat darkness from the sixth hour (noon) to the ninth hour when JesusChrist died on the cross. Surely, if it was true, other people wouldhave taken notice of the darkness. There was a Christian chronographerby the name of Sextus Julius Africanus, who wrote about the history ofthe world up to 221 AD, he makes mention of one historian named Thallus(who in AD 52 wrote about history of the Mediterranean since the TrojanWar). The passage went something like this, “on the whole world therepressed a fearful darkness, and the rocks were rent by an earthquake,and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. Thalluscalls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of hisHistories, without reason it seems to me.” Julius Africanus finds aneclipse hard to believe because it occurred during a full moon. BothThallus and Julius Africanus took it for granted that Jesus died (andtherefore existed). Another historian by the name of Phlegon, wholived in the first century and known for writing two books, Chroniclesand the Olympiads, made note of the darkness. He reported that in thefourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (33 AD), there was “the greatesteclipse of the sun” and that “it became night in the sixth hour of theday (noon) so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was agreat earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned inNicaea.” Origen Admantius, an early Christian scholar, cites Phlegonin his book “Against Celsus.” From the above references, duringthe time of Jesus’ death, there was a solar eclipse beginning at noonthat lasted three hours, on a day where there was to be a full moon atnight.”So in the iron age when people reported seeing gods and demons and shit, some people said there was an eclipse but they couldn’t explain it, therefore jesus is the son of god?Google “argument from ignorance”.Instead of saying “look, a shiny thing I cannot understand… it must be magic” like a caveman seeing someone use a bic lighter, you are instead saying something even more silly, “ooh, vague reports about something people in the age of greek mythology didn’t record and couldn’t understand… must be magic.”

@FalconBridge – Whythankyou.@Fool0nThePlanet – I don’t generally bash people. I got fed up with someone today on their blog, she was asking for prayer for her daughter who was having problems with asthma. I told her not to just rely on prayer, but to get her daughter an extra inhaler and take her to the doctor if she gets worse (some really religious parents don’t because it’s “god’s will” like the chick who was in the news recently for letting her kid die of cancer). I didn’t accuse her of anything, I just gave that advice, and like 5 people bashed me saying I was calling her a bad parent and one of them banned me from their blog who praises herself on her blog for not censoring anyone.It was ridiculous, I just didn’t want her kid to die.So I got a bit pissy.But normally I’m not mean to religious folk. I just disagree with them.When I was christian my life was miserable. Now I’m an atheist and things are actually looking up.Questioning faith doesn’t mean you get hit with a lightning bolt. There’s a part in the movie Saved (really good movie btw, extremely even-handed and not preachy) where the girl who is questioning her faith goes up to the church, looks up at the steeple with the cross and starts cussing, and it’s like she’s waiting to see if a lightning bolt hits her, and nothing happens.Really good movie, damn I wanna see it again now.But yeah, feel free to hang around and ask questions or argue or whatever you like. Me blaga eh su bloga : D

@tau_1 – I would be fine with that except there is this giant scam going, you may have heard about it, called “religion”, whereby evil men use people who attach themselves to faith to gain money and power and usually kill shitloads of people at some point.Faith got bush elected both times.Faith was the basis of the inquisition.Faith is why gay people can’t get married, why slavery wasn’t abolished on this continent for 300 years, why many women are and have been subjugated and will be subjugated for a long time.Someone in the KKK might be “attaching themselves” to something and chasing their bliss too, but find something more productive to attach yourself to. Because your hobby shouldn’t kill people.Sorry if I’m being blunt.

@agnophilo – yes you are being blunt…However, life goes on…Did you know that one person who hatred was go bad that he want to start a race war in the U.S. This person died of cancer from smoking so much…Life goes on. Look something lessons are always being learned. Even the Gov. of S.C. learned a lesson. We all learn lessons and life goes on.I personally don’t spend my life worrie or concern about what other say… I know my faith and belief and life goes on.

@tau_1 – So you’re saying that it’s okay to believe whatever makes you personally happy no matter how many people your action hurts because “life goes on”?Why then isn’t it okay to rape children, what does raping children make life “stop”?This is a ridiculous abdication of moral responsibility.

@agnophilo – First off, science can explain how something works, but not why. For example, we know how we get earthquakes. But we never know why an earthquake occurs at a particular time and for what purpose.2) “All matter in the UNIVERSE is expanding. Not the world.”So I used the world incorrectly for universe. Regardless, the universe is expanding outward from a point we have not discovered yet. It’s to establish a finite universe.3) Science can only explain physical matter. Like someone pointed earlier, science cannot explain love. That link only indicated brain activity between married couples. Science cannot explain why A loves B more than C, nor can it explain why some people prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate.4) The sin factor. Christians believe that sin is the source of our suffering. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the Book of Genesis, we’ve all been sinning. It’s genetic. Some natural disasters are caused by humans. For example, we’ve destroyed a huge portion of the ozone layer through pollution and man made chemicals, allowing more harmful rays to enter the earth, which leads to global warming and bound to lead to floods.5) Faith. Faith can be described as trust that applies to physical and nonphysical matter. There’s no guarantee it’ll work, but it helps. For example, a little child is tossed up high by her father. She’s afraid, but she trusts (has faith) that her father will catch her as she falls down and not allow her to get hurt. In the New Testament, the apostle Peter briefly walked on water to greet Jesus during a storm. He began to sink into the water because he became aware of the storm and no longer believed. Call it a fairytale if you want. I’ll relate a personal story of faith. When I was in middle school, I would go to the park everyday. One day, I went to the park with a friend who was younger than me. We had two bikes, a bike with the hand brakes (mine), and a bike where you have to backpedal to brake. The park was sitting on top of a hill. I told him that he should walk down the hill and I’ll wait for him at the bottom. The road leads into a busy street. When I got to the bottom, I saw him ride down the hill with his feet off the pedal, heading straight into the busy street. I looked away and muttered very fast, multiple times, “Please God, don’t let him die.” When I opened my eyes, he was okay and surrounded by onlookers. The bike was crumpled, but my friend had no scrape on him, just shaken up. That’s a sign of faith and God answering. Does He answer everybody’s prayer? No. Why did He answer mine? I don’t know. People said my friend was lucky, I thanked God, and I bet a logical-oriented person like yourself cannot explain why either. You can explain how my friend’s bike cushioned the impact, but what were the chances that he would not get hit head on by a car(s) traveling 45+ mph or flip over the car he hit, only to be struck by another car?6) [So in the iron age when people reportedseeing gods and demons and shit, some people said there was an eclipsebut they couldn’t explain it, therefore jesus is the son of god?Google “argument from ignorance”.Insteadof saying “look, a shiny thing I cannot understand… it must be magic”like a caveman seeing someone use a bic lighter, you are instead sayingsomething even more silly, “ooh, vague reports about something peoplein the age of greek mythology didn’t record and couldn’t understand…must be magic.”]Jesus is the Son of God. You may not believe, but it’s the truth. Not believing doesn’t make something anymore false and the opposite holds true too. I repeat, faith may help and is not guaranteed. The people I mentioned in regards to the darkness only described what they saw. At the time, how else would you explain an unknown phenomenon? Magic? The gods are angry at me/us? Voodoo? The Bible predicted it in Amos 8:9 “That I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight”, roughly seven hundred years before Jesus was born, since Amos lived during the reign of King Uzziah of Judah. It happened when Jesus died on the cross, and there were a few firsthand witnesses who fortunately wrote the event down.7) The Bible is a peculiar book. It has history, song, poetry, prophecies, and is God’s Word. However, the Bible should not be taken literally. Some things in the Bible are mentioned as they appear to be. Moving on, the prophecies in the Bible are accurate and specific. They’re not generic like what you get from a fortune teller. In addition, many prophecies have been fulfilled and confirmed by archaeology. Case in point, the destruction of Tyre as predicted in Ezekiel 26: 3-14. Ezekiel was under Babylonian captivity when he wrote down the prophecy that was completely fulfilled 250 years later almost as exactly as stated. Mathematician Peter W. Stoner calculated that Ezekiel had a one in 75 million chance of correctly guessing Tyre’s future when he wrote the book. I don’t know how many factual evidence you need to consider the Bible as trustworthy, but that was one example.8) God does not control the weather 24/7. But since He did create the universe, He can choose to bend it however He feels like. For example, the parting of the Red Sea. We know that the moon’s gravitational pull affects the waves in the ocean. If God existed, He can increase the gravitational pull of the moon and have it pull the Red Sea in two different directions to allow the Jews to cross it safely, only to let the sea return on top of the Egyptians. 9) God is above natural law. Natural law is things behave in a cause-and-effect way almost all the time (i.e. year after year). Miracles are a transcendent act of God’s supernatural power. Every Biblical miracle had a purpose to spread God’s message. Miracles no longer appear as explained in Luke 16: 19-31, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. My question to atheists is: let’s accept God is above natural law (Science cannot explain how God works nor why). Would it be possible to accept that God is creator of everything? (Please don’t digress about magic, flying monkeys, and aliens)10) Why Christians give credit to God for everything and it appears it’s a win-win situation for Him every time. A: We believe in Him. He’s done everything for us. If it didn’t work as we wanted, we have no right to question it. He’s called our Heavenly Father for a reason. It works the same way with parents and their children. Little children want everything and sometimes the parents will say no and something like “It’s for your own good or not now, but you’ll understand when you grow up.”

@tau_1 – Yes, and I made a point which you apparently blew off. You apparently care about making yourself happy and don’t care how your actions or beliefs, or those you support, effect people who aren’t you.